‘Customers do know best, and they want things now’ – Xace CEO Megan Easey

Megan Easey leads Xace, a regulated business-account provider carving out a niche in global iGaming and fintech. Her leadership blends urgency with entrepreneurship to tackle persistent onboarding and payments pain points in the industry. With Xace set to utilise its Malta licence for a 2026 launch, Megan plans to make the island a key EU hub, positioning the company as a bespoke, premium alternative to traditional banking for high-volume clients.

Megan Easey’s career is one of evolution driven by necessity, a journey shaped by front-line realities. With over two decades on the business-to-consumer (B2C) side of gaming, Megan’s operational lens revealed a persistent weak link in the gaming industry: business-to-business transactions, particularly those needing multicurrency solutions and multiple banking rails.

That insight propelled Megan into fintech in the three years before taking the helm at Xace and sharpened her twin-pillar work ethos, “built on regulatory compliance and commercial growth,” she explains – a combination that she believes is essential for developing solutions that make life easier for customers. Malta has long been part of her story. “I’ve been in Malta on and off since 2007. I also love to work in this country, a place I call home.”

Megan’s leadership style at Xace is encapsulated in a single prompt: ‘Let’s go’. “At Xace – and certainly in this role – ‘let’s go’ is pre-emptive. We do go – and we go fast,” she affirms, explaining that this pace is only possible due to a cohesive team. “I have such a great team that we’ve all adopted that ethos. So, every day, it’s ‘Good morning, let’s go!’” Understandably, the business operates on more than just this philosophy alone. Trust and interaction make it work. “Everything we do is driven by collaboration. There are no silos.”

Balancing external and internal customers is the priority. “What keeps me up is how we can do better for our customers. And, at the same time, what we can improve for our internal customers – our team members. To me, those things are a symbiotic relationship,” Megan remarks.

To maintain her edge and stay close to the market, Megan turns to her customer-facing team members – her greatest source of practical innovation. “I like to ask for ideas from the people who speak to our customers directly,” she shares. “The customers do know best – and they want things now. There are no two ways about it, whether it is in gaming or fintech and payments.”

Xace itself was born from frustration and foresight: amid “some 17 payment options” at a major industry event, the founders saw few addressing the sector’s most persistent problems. The initial challenge, Megan adds, was that Xace could only offer British pound payments in the UK, which “is what everybody could do”. The mission quickly became to move past legacy system constraints by building multiple banking rails across countries, with multicurrency wallets and broader coverage, enabling Xace to offer regulated business accounts for the gaming sector internationally.

Today, Xace’s value proposition is clear. “We provide a payment infrastructure tailored to international iGaming – an alternative to IBAN-only solutions,” Megan explains. Xace is not chasing small transfers or balances; it deliberately positions itself as a top-tier service. “We are a premium financial service.’’

To better serve its high-net-worth clients, Xace re-engineered its model over the past year by combining its customer support and payments operations.

“We decided to combine tasks under one point of contact,” Megan continues. “Our payment operations and customer service are effectively a team of VIP managers, because every customer is a VIP for us. The focus is not only speed of response but also quality of response.” The outcome is continuity and trust, and the positive feedback has been immediate, with customers highlighting the specific individuals who look after them.

While this is a win for the company, Megan does not believe in taking it ‘eas(e)y’. The fintech sector faces constant pressures, but Xace has moved past the hurdle preoccupying many competitors. “Our biggest challenge is not doing what fintechs are doing right now, which is looking for more funding. We are past that point,” she contends. The battle now is execution at pace.

“Our challenge is to balance tech resources to stay ahead of the game,” she observes, outlining the need for constant refinement of product functionality and ease of use. Even so, technology cannot eclipse experience. “If you focus purely on tech, you lose sight of the customer’s experience with the existing product,” Megan warns.

This principle shaped the overhaul of Xace’s operational model – and the people strategy behind it. “We had to change the skill set in the business, and then change onboarding of new team members,” she says. Training for existing staff was extensive. “Our focus is on multi-skilling individuals so that there is a seamless experience between customer service and payment operations.”

Hiring remains a global issue, especially given Xace’s unique cross-functional role requirements. “It’s not easy to find people who want to be everything to one customer,” Megan admits. The decision to combine payment operations, over-the-counter (OTC) trading and customer service meant significant internal movement and retraining. The rigour of Xace’s processes is non-negotiable. Payments undergo multiple checks – “we ensure that we have two sets of eyes, and finally a third for approvals on payments. Our teams are fully committed to maintaining high standards and consist of individuals with rigorous attention to detail and substantial experience in regulated payment processing.”

Externally, regulation and jurisdiction are shifting. Xace is doubling down on Malta as a key hub for its European operations, driven by a strategic move to localise its EU licence, “by using our existing licence in Malta,” Megan adds. “This will allow us more freedom across the EU and reduces past dependency on institutions located outside of Malta.”

For 2026, Xace’s vision is to leverage its new infrastructure to gain market share across Europe and beyond by building an integrated ecosystem. “Payments alone aren’t the future, and standalone payment institutions, especially in the EU, simply can’t differentiate,” Megan notes. “The winners will be those building ecosystems on best-in-class infrastructure and technology. That’s where we’re taking Xace – connecting payments, software as a service (SaaS) and treasury in one platform to help our clients scale.”

This focus now translates into immediate, tactical steps. “From a business perspective, let’s keep it simple. It’s about getting our Malta licence established and our SEPA solution up and running,” Megan states. The licence is not just a regulatory milestone but a business accelerator, heightening the urgency of this next phase.

The relaunch of Xace Malta gives the company greater operational and commercial flexibility. “This move is about taking control of its jurisdiction and staying closer to the target market. The goal,” Megan concludes, “is simple but ambitious: to bolster Xace’s reputation and secure a lasting foothold on the island. I’d like to have cemented Xace’s reputation as a strong brand in Malta – one that everybody wants to be associated with.”

This article is part of the serialisation of 50 interviews featured in MaltaCEOs 2026 – the sister brand to MaltaCEOs.mt and an annual high-end publication bringing together some of the country’s most influential business leaders.